How Grindr Is Ruining The Gay Scene

I think its fair to say that we all have a love-hate relationship with Grindr. Actually, it’s not just Grindr. Our contradictory feelings towards Grindr pretty much applies to all the other gay apps out there like Jack’d, Planet Romeo etc. We swear off them one day. Find our way back to them the next day. Attempt to delete them the day after. But like some hopeless junkie, give in to boredom and reactivate them soon after.

You don’t do that? Ok, maybe that’s just me…

Source: queenriver1012.tumblr.com

Anyway, the annoying thing about Grindr and other gay apps out there is that they have become almost a necessity. Due to all that homophobia floating about, we don’t have the option of flirting with cute men in public places like straight people can. So in our pursuit of companionship, we are forced to download whatever free gay app there is out there and hope that eventually, it leads us to our virtual prince charming.

The problem with that is that Grindr isn’t just ruining gay romance; it is ruining gay men in general.

Firstly, the layout that Grindr presents its users in makes us all superficial without us even realising it.

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We stop seeing other people on Grindr as actual people. Instead, we view them as just another profile on our browser. Just another virtual character amidst a sea of others, all defined by their picture and stats. When forced to interact with one another in such a setting, we are forced to judge each other’s self-worth solely based on physical appearances. A person’s face, physique and stats are the only things that matter when we consider whether they are worth our time and attention.

Secondly, in the absence of face-to-face interactions, Grindr makes gay men rude since we get to do whatever we want without suffering any genuine consequences.

Source: Tumblr.com

We spell out what we want explicitly. We get away with blatantly ignoring other gay men that we deem to be inferior to us. We grow used to the notion that an online character is obliged to reveal every little detail to us. So we bombard them with intrusive questions. Their preferred sexual roles, their intentions, their desires, their private photos, these are just some of the private details of others that so many gay men feel entitled to know.

By moulding us into superficial and rude human beings, Grindr isn’t just ironically making it more difficult for us to find meaningful relationships; it turns us into lousier human beings. You see, most of us were gay online first before we became gay offline. Gay apps pretty much became our first contact with the gay world. It introduced us to other gay men for the first time and unfortunately, cultivated our impressions that most gay men are superficial and rude. We start to subscribe to the stereotype that all gay men are superficial and rude not realising that maybe, just maybe, Grindr and other gay apps are what caused the stereotypes in the first place.

You see, by forcing us to judge our own self-worth through our physical appearance, we feel pressured to do whatever it takes to improve our physical attractiveness. We flock to the gym in an effort to pump up our bodies. We splurge on cosmetics and nice clothes in an effort to make ourselves more desirable. We take pretentious photos from flattering angles in an effort to gain the approval of others through likes and comments. In short, we all become superficial because that is the only way to ‘survive’ in the gay world.

If making us superficial in real life wasn’t bad enough, Grindr and other gay apps makes us rude in real life as well. The rude and insensitive behaviour we have cultivated online translates to our real-life behaviour when confronted with other gay men in a real world setting. Similarly to how we stopped seeing other gay men on virtual apps as real human beings, we also fail to see other gay men in reality as actual human beings. We spread rumours about each other, gossip about one another, sleep with one another behind each other’s backs. All because we forget that the other gay men that we are behaving so obnoxiously to are actual human beings with actual emotions. While we’re probably aware that what we are doing is wrong, we don’t really care because Grindr has allowed us to get away with so much obnoxious behaviour online that we become so used to not considering the consequences of our actions.

In summary, Grindr is ruining the gay scene by turning many of us into rude and superficial human beings. The only thing that can redeem Grindr right now is if Nick Jonas decides to join it:

4 comments on “How Grindr Is Ruining The Gay Scene”

I don’t know how many times I have deleted an app only to end up having to create another profile a couple of days later. But stick with it because I have met my Prince Charming and after seven months of being app free we are moving in together.